Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Advocates Are Traveling Cross-Country in the 5th Annual “On the Road to Remember” Tour

Wilmington, NC – For the fifth year, volunteers from the North Carolina-based CUE Center for Missing Persons will set out on another cross country tour to raise awareness of missing children and adults. The team is scheduled to make an appearance in Tennessee and Kentucky in August; distributing a trail of DVD’s, press kits and valuable information concerning 110 missing persons and 6 unsolved homicide cases. Some Tennessee and Kentucky cases are included in this year’s tour and will behighlighted at the groups pre planned rally stops that will include participation from law enforcement agencies, advocates - organizations, families of the missing and local and state officials.

“After so many years, missing persons and homicide cases fade from the public’s radar, but for the families and friends left behind, the nightmare continues every minute of every day,” said CUE Founder, Monica Caison, who is leading the caravan of volunteers. “We make this trip each year to assure no case fades from memory and to support the families who remain searching for a resolution. They need our help and the community’s help to bring forth information.”

The 2008 tour, On the Road to Remember will depart from Wilmington, NC on August 21st, and will end more than 5, 299 miles later returning the volunteers to their home state North Carolina, on September 2nd. Hundreds of volunteers will take part in various legs of the tour, which will include thirty rally stops,traveling thru seventeen states in an effort to promote a public awareness. Tennessee – RALLY STOPS • Family of Missing – Rachel Conger “August 31st at 3:30 pm 1035 Maurice Field Drive, Paris Tennessee 38242

Originally established in 1967 by Jack Huizenga, our Residential as well as Commercial business was built upon honesty, innovative sight, remarkable talent and an undisputedly strong work ethic. A refreshing "mission statement" that consistently rings true and grows stronger with each passing day.

Brett Huizenga, the sole son of Jack Huizenga, proudly continues the legacy highly regarded by many, including Max, Jack and Will, the three young boys of his own.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Posted using ShareThisTrees are our future! Nurseryman.Com is a bootstrapping green industry business offering evergreen trees to the general public, with no BS, a big dose of help and down-to-earth instruction on getting the most out of your "green investment".http://nurseryman.com

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Best intentions aside, seems like studies have shown that online petitions actually aren't all that productive. Yet, all hope is not lost. Project Jason has a wonderful task for all of us, to help implement an essential bill to aid many loved one's missing persons. And with the way they have it set-up, it's just as easy as signing an online petition, yet the impact is far greater.http://www.projectjason.org/legislation.html

These are the basic steps involved:

1) If you are interested in helping make a difference in the lives of thousands of missing persons and their families, send an email to campaignforthemissing@projectjason.org Give us your name and the state in which you live. Campaign volunteers are asked to work as a team and post updates on a special area of Project Jason’s forum.

2) Look up the name and contact information for your state senator. This is the official who works with state law rather than federal. You may look up your representative here http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm

3) Send either via email or US mail the prepared letter you will find at the end of this posting to that representative. You are asking them to sponsor this bill and to present it to the senate.

4) If you get a negative response, write to other senators until sponsorship is obtained. (My hope is that there will be more than one person in each state working on this, so that no one person is working on it.)

Sample Letter

This is a sample letter you may use to send to your state senator to ask for sponsorship of the model legislation.Dear Senator _________,

It has come to my attention that there is a very real and growing problem here in the state of ____________.

Each year, families in __________ struggle with the agony of having to report a missing loved one. Far too often missing persons investigations grow cold, leaving many to cope with this loss. Historically, the law enforcement community's ability to locate and ensure a safe return of those missing has been hampered by an inability to share resources and information when conducting investigations and identifying remains.

In collaboration with experts representing State and local law enforcement, policymakers, forensic scientists, medical examiners and coroners, and crime victims, the U.S. Department of Justice has developed model State legislation. This model legislation seeks to address the national problems of missing persons and the identification of human remains.

For cases involving missing persons, law enforcement's ability to locate and ensure a safe return must be improved. Law enforcement must be granted additional tools to identify high-risk missing persons cases and promptly disseminate critical information to other law enforcement agencies and the public. This model legislation provides framework for improving law enforcement's response.

It suggests ways States can improve the collection of critical information about missing persons, prioritize high-risk missing persons cases, and ensure prompt dissemination of critical information to other law enforcement agencies and the public that can improve the likelihood of a safe return. At the same time, this model legislation suggests an approach for collecting information during the missing persons reporting process that can later be used to help identify human remains.

The model legislation will also ensure that information that could help identify human remains is promptly collected and reported to national databases. Specifically, the model legislation suggests a mechanism for improving death scene investigations, centralizing within the State the reporting of unidentified remains, ensuring the delivery of human remains to an entity that can conduct an appropriate examination, ensuring the timely reporting of identifying information to national databases, and maximizing available resources that can reduce the cost of identifications.

There are an estimated 40,000-50,000 unidentified deceased persons in the US. Many of these persons may be reported missing, but without the model legislation in place as law, this number will continue to grow. This leaves families of the missing without answers, sometimes for years, and unfortunately, sometimes forever.

With more than 100,000+ missing persons cases open in the US, it is clear that we must place more importance upon actions taken that will decrease this number. We are, after all, not talking about numbers, but about human beings. These missing persons are loved and missed by their families. We need to take swift and firm action to put into place laws which will give these families hope and increase the number who come back home.

As my state representative, I ask you to strongly consider sponsoring this bill in the next legislative session. Thank you.

My neighbor friend and I are going to start taking this parenting class tonight called Love & Logic, I think their classes are nationwide...I've heard great things about it, so I'll let you all know! ;)

Love and Logic is a philosophy founded by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D., and is based on the experience of a combined total of over 75 years working with and raising kids. It provides simple and practical techniques to help teachers and parents have less stress and more fun while raising responsible kids. Love and Logic offers many useful techniques that teachers and parents can begin experimenting with immediately. Here are some examples:

* Locking–in sadness or empathy before delivering consequences* Setting limits with enforceable statements* Sharing control through lots of small choices* Building relationships with the One Sentence Intervention* Neutralizing arguing with the Brain Dead technique* The Anticipatory Consequence

Love and Logic is easy to use, raises responsible kids, and changes lives.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Dan Bashaw and Mike Gifford have put together a terrific list of Open Source tools that can be used by activists to spread the message and promote interaction by enewsletters, forums, blogs, wikis and epetitions. They wrote an article for Steven Clift's excellent Democracies Online Newswire.

109,000 people around the United States have vanished without a trace. Can you help? Garden for the Missing is a location within Second Life (a popular interactive 3D virtual world) which displays missing persons posters to thousands of Second Life residents.

The main location is at the Remora region (think of a region as a sort of city, and Second Life like a country). The Garden for the Missing contains over 170 posters of missing persons. We also have a garden located at the Aloft Nonprofit Commons region.

We invite you to visit these locations! Stop by and read the stories of the missing, enjoy the virtual beach and rooftop gardens, tell your friends and help raise awareness for these souls. All missing persons posters are clickable so that you can read more about their disappearances. The photos of missing persons are sourced from a range of US-based organizations including Project Jason, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, The National Center for Missing Adults, and BeyondMissing.

You can visit the garden at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Remora/203/148/21 and if you are not a member of Second Life, you will need to download the program and sign up. It is free to join!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Kristi's Social Media and PR Blog: Quicker Way to Locate Missing Children: "The National Fraternal Order of Police announced that they have released a photographic system, PhotoAlert, that is intended to speed up the process of recovery missing children. 'By using proprietary GPS technology, National PhotoAlert meets that demand in missing children cases by issuing geographic-specific alerts to thousands of recipients each minute including law enforcement and government agencies. Recipients receive both a photograph and text information of a missing person.'"

Saturday, August 9, 2008

PLEASE HELP ME. My Canadian daughter, Jessie Foster, born in Calgary, AB and raised mostly in Kamloops, BC went missing from her home at 1009 Cornerstone Place, North Las Vegas, NV USA (who goes missing from their home???) on March 29, 2006.

Friday, August 8, 2008

An interactive site dedicated to missing persons and their families and friends, law enforcement, journalists, media, and those with a heart for the missing to congregate and exchange information and support. http://peace4missing.ning.com